


A New Day

by tuesday



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 08:57:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5450894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/pseuds/tuesday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wilson heard the bird first.</p><p>"Nice sailing.  Chump."</p><p>The voice of a young woman immediately followed: "I swear I will <em>set you on fire</em>!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sageofchaos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sageofchaos/gifts).



> Mildest of spoilers for Shipwrecked, though you don't need to have played the DLC to follow the plot. Thanks so much to my beta! All remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> Happy Yuletide!

Wilson heard the bird first.

"Nice sailing. Chump."

The voice of a young woman immediately followed: "I swear I will _set you on fire_!"

As he came around the trees, he spotted said woman, waving a lighter at a fleeing parrot. It was . . . wearing a pirate hat.

And here Wilson had thought he'd grown used to everything this world had to offer.

The woman rubbed her hands over her face. She had a rucksack over one shoulder and was clad in some sort of seashell armor. Her hair was up in pigtails, though one was coming loose. If not for the ship's wreckage, Wilson would think she'd just come through a rainstorm. She was so soaked through that her skin and hair glistened in the sunlight.

She was perhaps the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

Wilson cleared his throat and took another step forward. She switched to a spear and had it leveled at him before he could so much as introduce himself. He slowly raised his hands and hoped he wasn't making a horrible mistake not going for a weapon of his own. At least he had a meat effigy waiting back at camp.

He hadn't seen another human being in _so long_.

"Huh," she said. She looked him up and down. Her face was skeptical, almost disbelieving. Her gaze lingered on his beard for a long while. Wilson was too nervous to move. "A person."

"That--" His voice cracked from disuse. He cleared his throat again. "That would be me."

"Well." She finally lowered the spear, propped the butt against the ground. "That's new."

Yes, Wilson thought. It really, really is.

\--

The woman's name was Willow. Where Wilson had gone quiet in his isolation, she had a tendency to talk to everything. She had a large bird that followed her everywhere--"Packim Baggims. He's a friend. I think. That, or the sort of foe that waits for his opponents to die of old age."--and was delighted to meet Otto von Chesterfield, Esquire, though she just called him Chester.

"He's so fuzzy!" she said, ruffling his fur.

"He's good company," Wilson said.

Partway back to camp, she called for a break. She eyed a pine tree and said, "Here's good." 

As they sat under its shadow, he could've sworn he heard her whisper, "Your time will come."

When he glanced over, though, she wasn't looking at him. She was staring intently at the tree.

"Would, um. Would you like," Wilson checked his pockets, "a berry shake?"

"Sure!" She pulled out a couple skewers of fishsticks and traded him. 

They had a lovely little picnic in those woods, the only sounds their chewing and Otto von Chesterfield panting happily away.

It was--weird. It was very, very weird. But also--nice. Incredibly, indescribably nice.

\--

As they walked, they occasionally stopped to forage. Sticks, grass, red berries--Wilson hated transplanting things and having to fertilize them ever after. His farmland was mostly crops that rarely, if ever, grew in the wild.

"But I was sick of all that water," Willow said as they reached the road. "Monsoon season was seriously the worst." She stopped. "Huh. Haven't seen one of these in a while."

"This stretch was here before me," Wilson said. He waved a hand into the distance. "A little ways up, I had to lay my own, though."

Willow's expression was one of consideration. "If we ever make it back to my islands, do you think you could build some bridges to connect them all?"

"We," she'd said. Wilson's face felt warm. He admitted, "I'm more of a scientist than an engineer."

"Hm." She shook her head. "I didn't really want to go back out on the water, anyway."

\--

"Yes!" Willow was very happy to see the campfire. 

Before he could so much as show her where he kept the extra firewood, she'd pulled her lighter from her pocket and several logs from her rucksack and quickly coaxed the small flame into a roaring blaze. She stood much closer than Wilson would have dared. Her face glowed. She closed her eyes and spread her arms. Even as small sparks leapt and brushed against her skin, her expression remained one of bliss.

Wilson considered tugging her back from it, but--she was a grown woman. She probably knew what she was doing. Besides, he had plenty of poultices if she ended up needing any. And he could understand the joy of finally feeling dry. There was a reason he kept a hat, umbrella, and raincoat on hand at all times.

"Home, sweet home," Wilson said quietly.

For once, he rather meant it.

\--

Eventually, Willow let the fire die down. When she stepped away, her expression was one of mild regret, though she really did seem much happier to be dry. She waved away the poultice Wilson offered--"I'm fine. Fire doesn't burn me."--and rather than elucidate, insisted on checking out Wilson's map and pestering him to explain each area she didn't find immediately obvious.

"These look like spider dens," she said, pointing a bit south of the forest where he'd found her.

"They are," Wilson agreed.

"No, but--it looks like there are twenty of them."

"Ah. I need to update that." He'd just been returning from his twice-yearly pruning expedition when he'd heard the bird, after all.

"Ah," she echoed. 

She prodded him until he gave in and did so then and there. He marked off seven and penciled in a little reminder to do some replanting before winter came. The back of his neck prickled. When he looked up, she was staring at him.

Self-conscious, he asked, "What?"

"You left _thirteen_ spider dens?"

"Um, yes. Yes, I did." Did she think he should replant right away?

They stared at each other for a while. Finally, she asked, "Did you need help with the rest? I could burn them all down for you. It usually leaves a few spiders alive, but they're easy targets in the daytime."

"No!" Wilson hadn't meant to shout, but he was both surprised and a little horrified.

"Really, I'd be fine, I meant it about fire not hurting me--" Wilson was kind of a terrible person, because he hadn't even considered the possibility of Willow being caught in the blaze.

He waved his hands, interrupting her. "I meant, no, please don't burn down my spider farm."

"Spider . . . farm?"

He pointed out the scribbles surrounding the spider dens and blanketing most of the immediate land surrounding them. "I keep the area trapped and collect the meat, webs, and venom sacs. Every once in a while, I clear out most of the three-tiered dens before they can all turn into queens."

"You eat monster meat?" Willow looked like she might be rethinking having followed him home.

"No," Wilson said, trying not to think of all those times he made meatballs of the stuff. He was already regretting showing her the map. Then again, she might have stumbled across the spider farm on her own, and then where would he be? With a burned down wasteland where his little web factory used to be, probably. "I feed it to my birds."

"Hm." She didn't look like she believed him.

"Also, I dry it and trade it to the pigmen for gold."

"So long as you don't try to feed it to me," she relented. Then, "What are pigmen?"

The village was just over the rise, a little past his array of drying racks. He showed her.

"I think you'll like them," he said on the short walk there. "They're the closest thing to company I've had besides Otto von Chesterfield."

\--

Willow did not like the pigmen.

\--

"Are you sure," Willow said as he ushered her away, "that I can't set that village on fire? They don't look like they'd be nearly as much trouble to take down as wildbores."

"They were here first!" Wilson said.

"Yes," Willow agreed. "And we'd be here last."

Maybe, Wilson thought, he could just move campsites. He had some pretty okay spots set up for when he wanted to visit other areas of the continent. Besides, it would be nice not to worry about full moons anymore.

\--

"Sure," Willow agreed. "There's just one thing I need to take care of first."

\--

Watching the plume of smoke rising through the air, it dawned on Wilson why she made him stay by the road.

Smiling brightly, Willow practically skipped back to him. "I always keep my promises!"

". . . I see." Wilson was beginning to wonder if there was anything Willow _didn't_ want to set on fire.

Willow turned her smile to Wilson and held out a hand. Wilson smiled back and took it. Even if she did burn the whole world down--he wouldn't change a thing. 

After all, he'd already reassembled the portal. If this world were destroyed, they could always find another one.


End file.
